1. "HCH's share price is stuck in a tight trading range by the...

1. "HCH's share price is stuck in a tight trading range by the traders and manipulators."

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It might be satisfying to blame "traders and manipulators" but, especially given the low numbers of shares traded compared with Shares on Issue, it seems very unlikely that the price is being held back by traders.

2. GMS said "I have mentioned before that I don't see the SP going anywhere until another catalyst or Ann. e.g. PFS, TSX Listing, Tier 1 announcement, etc."

That seems a bit more likely, but while it would be nice to think that the price will boom once HCH is TSX listed, it seems a bit unlikely, because I'm not convinced that the price is low only because it is ASX listed rather than TSX listed.

The most likely explanation for the low and stationary share price is much more likely to be because, while we are finding plenty of ore, it suffers from three main problems,

• notwithstanding the higher grade core, the deposit is largely low grade
• there is very little of the core that is near the surface, which means that whoever mines it will have to have deep pockets to carry the project for a few years and
• HCH is not in a position to mine it itself, so everyone knows that Cortadera will be put on the market at some time.

Now this somewhat glum assessment could change if HCH hits some higher grade material at Cortadera or at Santiago Z. But that will take time and money to find out. There is no way known that the present kitty can cover the cost of paying for the tenements and also mining them. So expect cap raisings.

Santiago Z looks interesting and Christian must have had his reasons for chasing it, but the mere fact that it was chased gives the impression that higher grades at Santiago Z have been what he is pinning his hopes on.

All of this is going to take time to sort out. There has been no drilling at all at Santiago Z and given that it is such a large area it will take three years to drill.

As for HCH being taken out by a major any time soon, that seems unlikely because, if the majors were crawling all over the figures last year, it seems perfectly clear that nothing they saw impelled them to act now. Most likely they decided to let a junior miner run with it for a while yet until the size and worth of the deposit is better known. It is also possible that they are aware of more prospective sites elsewhere.

Of course, the company's fortunes could change overnight with some rich drill hits, but in their absence shareholders need to brace themselves for being here for the long haul.